I recently wrote a post on one of my blogs, "Make Money Online: You May Not Get Rich, But There's No Reason To Be Poor", as one of many examples of on-page SEO.

On-Site SEO

With on-site SEO, there are some variables that you need to work with to make sure your site is completely optimized. These include:

• Domain Name. If you have a niche blog, you need to have your niche keywords in the domain name.
• Blog Title. Whether you have a niche blog or not, the blog title should contain your primary keywords.
• Blog Posts. All of your blog posts need to be related with related keywords in the post title as well as the content.
• Recent Posts. You should have your 10 most recent posts linked in the sidebar or the footer. Each post should be related.
• Internal Linking. You need to make sure your posts are cross-linked in some way. You can use a specialized plugin for in-post content and you can use a related posts plugin of some kind.
• Emphasize Keywords. You can emphasize keywords in your posts by using any of the header tags. I prefer using the strong tag. You have to be careful not to overdo it, because it can look spammy when you do. It should look like you did it as a matter of course.
• Keyword repetition. I'm not saying you need to repeat you keyword a bunch of times. You do, however, need to use synonyms and related keywords. If you write naturally and stay on topic, this is pretty easy to do.
• External Links. You have to keep external links to a minimum (internal doesn't matter). If you count the number of words in the post, you should have no more than one external link for every 150 words.

There are other tips and tricks, but those are the basics. Everything needs to be relevant and related.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO is similar to on-site SEO, but the first two from the list above don't apply and all of your posts don't have to be related. When you're dealing with a niche blog, on-page SEO is a part of on-site SEO and there isn't anything different.

If you don't have a niche blog, on-page SEO can still be effective. My primary blog, for example, doesn't have the niche in the domain name or the blog title, yet it's a local niche blog about the Philippines with a bunch of other stuff thrown in. A lot of the old stuff is slowly disappearing as I incorporate some of it into newer posts, move some to the other blogs, and outright delete worthless junk. My main blog didn't start as a niche blog, but I'm reshaping it as time progresses. It still draws nearly 1000 unique visitors per day and more than 2000 page views.

The secret to using on-page SEO on a non-niche blog is to have several related posts so that you can use internal linking between them. Google doesn't assign authority to a post based on the overall blog; it assigns authority based on keywords, backlinks and internal links. Of course, the older the domain is, the more authority any post has regardless of the content.

The blog post I linked in the first paragraph is another blog that I plan to reshape into a niche blog after it has tons of content.

Starting with a Niche, or Reshaping into a Niche

There are two ways to create and produce a niche blog. Starting with an idea and continuing with it is only one way. As many people find out, any particular niche chosen in advance can succeed or fail depending on factors such as knowledge and interest in the niche.

Reshaping into a niche works on the idea that all of your posts tend to be about certain related topics. As the blog matures, you see a pattern in your own writing. You then need to concentrate on that pattern and do what I've been doing — weed out the unrelated stuff.

Both methods require a lot of time, while the second method requires twice as much time as the first. The second method, however, has a much greater chance of success. My main blog is more than 2 1/2 years old, but I've only spent 6 months intentionally targeting the local niche. Imagine how much more powerful the blog would be if I had started targeting the local niche at the first six-month mark. I guarantee you that by now it would outrank other blogs with the same local niche.

The MMO Niche

My example post was all about making money. The MMO niche is heavily saturated and I have absolutely no hope of competing with other blogs in the niche. In fact, I refuse to even try. As time progresses, I intend to do similar posts targeting other niches.

The example post was all about linking out to other blogs that actually ARE attempting to compete. If you take the time to read it, you'll see how I optimized the title and the content. I will eventually write related posts and link them together internally, get a few backlinks to them and make the series almost as powerful as any MMO blog, but that's not my goal. The goal in this case is to simply make the backlinks carry a lot of weight which, in turn, provides excellent backlinks to the recipients.

Some of you may read what I'm writing about and think that I'm full of shiitake or something, but I only tell you about what actually works. I won't fill your head with any kind of excrement that does you no good at all and makes you waste a whole lot of precious time you could use for doing something else productive. It isn't my style.